Russia's foreign minister sharply criticized U.S. sanctions against Russia's state arms trader Friday, saying the move won't make Moscow shift any closer to the U.S. stance on Iran's controversial nuclear program.

President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of pressuring respected international monitors to stay away from Sunday's parliamentary elections, a decision that hurts the credibility of balloting that is expected to bolster his power.

Doctors and rescuers were trying Friday to coax more than two dozen doomsday cult members into leaving their forest hideout near the Volga River, where they were awaiting the end of the world with the coming of spring.

Four employees of a Swiss air traffic control company were convicted of negligent homicide on Tuesday in the 2002 mid-air collision of a passenger plane and cargo jet that killed 71 people -- most of them vacationing Russian schoolchildren.

An ambitious expedition to bolster Russia's claims to much of the oil and gas wealth of the Arctic Ocean headed to the North Pole on Wednesday, plowing its way through unbroken Arctic ice behind a sturdy Russian icebreaker.

Russian scientists hope to plunge to the seabed beneath the North Pole in the next few days in a miniature sub and plant a titanium capsule containing the Russian flag, symbolically claiming much of the Arctic Ocean floor for Moscow.

An ambitious Russian naval expedition that set off for the North Pole to explore the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and stake Moscow's claim to oil and natural gas riches under the seabed ground to a sudden halt Wednesday when a ship broke down.

An ambitious Russian naval expedition that set off for the North Pole to explore the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and stake Moscow's claim to oil and natural gas riches under the seabed ground to a sudden halt Wednesday when a ship broke down.